Road to Wizard
by Ghostsammeo
Summary: An alternate to Road to Ninja, in which the Limited Tsukuyomi transports Naruto and Sakura to Hogwarts, where the Masked Man has warped the world and seemingly Naruto and Sakura's pasts in the process. Trying to get by with both new and familiar faces in this novel wizarding world, Naruto and Sakura try desperately to both work out the Masked Man's plan and, of course, get home.
1. The Hogwarts Genjutsu

_**ROAD TO WIZARD**_

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 ** _THE HOGWARTS GENJUTSU_**

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 ** _A/N: Watching of the Road to Ninja movie is not required for the reading or understanding of this fic, though it certainly helps, especially for the first thousand words or so._**

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The prevailing sound was the _squeak-squeak-squeak_ of Sakura's swing.

The chiming chorus of crickets accompanied this metallic, screeching consonance, though as they could not be seen from their hidden positions in the grass around the park, it was only Sakura that Naruto paid attention to, her determinedly angry eyes glimmering under both the moon up top and the flickering bright light hanging above. The 'date', if that was what it truly was, was not going well.

"Err, Sakura," Naruto finally spoke out, still watching his team member swing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in her stood up position, "Sounded like your mum wanted you to come back."

Sakura spoke quickly, "It's best to leave her alone. She's always like this, butting in on every little part of every little thing you do, and trying to tell you exactly how you should be doing it. And my dad is no better either." Naruto watched as the girl ranted, pink strands of hair rocking to and fro past her eyes as she spoke, "Would it be so hard to take my side once and a while? But nooo, he always does whatever she says." Naruto continued to watch and listen, though he didn't like what he was hearing, didn't like to hear Sakura rant on so about her parents, when some people… when he, didn't even… "According to them, I'm a no good ninja with no shot at becoming a Jonin. Throw me a bone some time!"

Naruto had stopped watching her now, eyes planted firmly to the ground. "You know what," he went to say, but Sakura cut through, not even hearing him.

"Why couldn't I have different parents?" she lamented, "One's I could respect like everyone else has." She huffed aloud, "I'd be better off without them."

At these words Naruto felt his grip on the metal swing handles tighten significantly. "Okay, I think that you're going a bit too far now."

It took half a second to process this, but once she had, Sakura leapt off the swings to land in front of Naruto, shrieking a questioning "What?" as she did so. She was just not picking up on Naruto's obvious discomfort at her talk of parents. Parents that Naruto would have given anything for.

Sakura stuck a finger forwards to Naruto, "Oh so you're gonna take their side, huh?"

Naruto stood up, anger bubbling below a feeling of the need to earnestly explain why her complaints weren't quite justified. "No, I just think that-"

Sakura cut through with a sigh, " _Huuuh,_ why did it have to be you here with me right now?" A pause as she turned and spoke in a lighter voice, "If Sasuke was here he would definitely understand how I feel."

Naruto gaped at the girl, and before all of his emotions at the mention of the ex team member could come to the forefront, before he could say what he so needed to say, a deep, commanding voice spoke out through the night.

"It's been a while, Naruto Uzumaki."

There, perched to the side, with his Akatsuki robes and spiral masked, was the Masked Man, the man they believed to be Madara Uchiha.

All thought to the previous conversation was quickly lost.

"So it's you, Madara!" Naruto snarled, placing his fingers together and summoning a shadow clone, before purposefully striding forwards.

He extended out a hand as he did so, and with his clone he formed the spiralling concentration of chakra that was the Rasengan, before leaping forwards, jutsu aimed straight for the man's chest.

As ever, physical contact proved impossible, and Naruto felt himself go flying through, crashing uselessly into the metal gate behind.

Madara hadn't moved an inch. "You never change," he commented with almost a hint of amusement, but before more could be said, the loud battle cry of Sakura's "Chaaaaaaa!" sounded out, and the said pinkette came flying down, leg first, pulverising the ground below with quite incredible strength; a miniature dust cloud even erupting out of the rubble created.

The Kunoichi knew though that she had not hit him. "I won't let you attack our village," she said, knuckles cracking, eyes glaring into Madara, who stood above.

"This is unplanned," the man admitted, withdrawing a small, transparent sphere from his robes and throwing it into the air casually, "But it doesn't matter."

The two leaf shinobi watched as the object flew into the air, floating almost, and then stopping so only the moon bore out through it, reflecting the glass a deep red. Then, within it, an image of sorts. Sharingan tomoe appeared, almost like an eye, and then a blinding light, shining so powerfully that both Naruto and Sakura had to shield their eyes from harm.

"MADARA! WHAT ARE YOU?" Naruto blubbered out under the bright gaze, and then, with a twinkle in their ears, the light enveloped all, until there was nothing left, just brightness.

It was within a few seconds after the light had subsided that the two pulled their arms away from their eyes, and it was within many, many more seconds that the two managed to get to grips with what had just happened.

"Where…. Where are we?"

Naruto and Sakura were in a hall. They were no longer in the park, in Konohagakure, they were inside.

Also, judging by the symmetrically placed beams of sunlight pouring through the great, arched windows and onto the stone slabbed floor, it was now not night, but daytime.

"S-Sakura," Naruto spoke out again, shakily, "What's going on?"

Sakura sounded less shaky, but certainly just as confused. "I don't know," she replied, looking about, "We must be in some sort of… hospital, I guess?"

It was a sound and well-conceived guess, as intermittently beside each window was a small one person bed, each with a bedpan and other sorts of appliances laying at their feet. On the walls were posters making mention of diseases and illnesses Sakura had never heard of, and she noticed with at first a thrill of horror, a person laying in one of these beds in the far corner, clearly, from their snoring, asleep; their arm hooked in a sling.

"But… But how did we get here?" Naruto went on worriedly, "And where's Madara?"

"I don't know Naruto, we're in the same exact situation aren't we? I know nothing more than you."

Naruto barely seemed to register her rise in temper, instead he looked about with fear, fingernails in-between his teeth as his blue eyes darted about the place, drinking in all of the detail.

"I don't know," Sakura said, "Maybe we're in some sort of genjutsu?"

Naruto turned to her then nodded with an apparent sudden burst of confidence at the mention of something he knew of, "Right!" He quickly did a hand seal and then said, "Release!"

Nothing happened.

"Not a genjutsu then?" Naruto murmured in a worried fashion once again, turning to his female counterpart.

"No, I reckon it _must_ be a genjutsu of some kind. Maybe one just too strong for a simple _release_ to break."

"But then, what do we do Sakura?"

Sakura, who was still more interested in their whereabouts than anything else, shrugged. "I dunno. Guess we'll just have to search the place for now. It's certainly a detailed little world we've been put in."

"Okay!" Naruto roared once more, "I'll create some shadow clones and they can search the area! Let's go!"

There was a resounding silence once Naruto had crossed his fingers in the classic Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu way. His eyes closed, he opened them, as if to check why the conjured clone had made no sound at all, and was almost appalled to find no new Naruto there standing next to him.

"Huh? What's up with that? Where's my shadow clone?"

Sakura frowned, not at all liking where this was possibly heading. She began to concentrate, running her chakra through her body, trying to flow it through to her fingertips, but…

"Naruto!" she exclaimed. He glanced up at her from attempting once more to conjure another clone.

"What?"

"Naruto! I can't feel any chakra, I think… it's like it's not there!"

Naruto was strangely calm at this news, though this soon became clear it was because he was foolishly labouring under the false impression that Sakura was just being melodramatic.

"Oh Sakura, don't be silly, our chakra can't just be _gone_. Anyway, I wanted to talk about our clothes, what on earth is going on with-"

"Naruto, we can talk about our clothes later!" Though now she paid attention, Naruto's assortment of clothing was completely weird, "Try and concentrate your chakra. It's non-existent. I can't even feel it within myself."

Naruto closed his eyes for a few moments, before drawing them open quickly again, a panicked glimmer now evident within, "I can't feel my chakra!"

"I know!" Sakura returned.

"But that doesn't make sense! Wait, let me try! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu! No. Shadow Clone Jutsu! Nope. Hm! Not working. There! Nothing. Dammit! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu! MULTI SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"

"Naruto it's not going to work! Keep it down would you?"

The blond let his arms sag down hopelessly. "Sakura… what are we going to do? Madara's trapped us here, wherever here is, and we have no jutsu. There's no way out of this."

Sakura sighed and looked about the room once more, before turning back to him, "Well listen Naruto, you're right, it is looking pretty hopeless right now, but there's still stuff we can do. First off, I think we've got to figure out where we are exactly and what's going on. For example, let's start with our clothes."

Naruto looked down to his attire at this mention. Both he and Sakura were wearing clothes of the sort they had never really seen. Under black robes they both wore white shirts with gold and red striped ties hanging from their necks. Naruto wore black trousers, Sakura a black skirt, and both had black plimsoll like shoes on. Naruto seemed to find this most distressing.

"It feels like my toes are being imprisoned, Sakura," he moaned, "Why would Madara make us wear this? The bastard!"

"I don't know," said Sakura, "but look, those bags on the floor, do you think they could be ours?"

Naruto glanced to two grey coloured rucksack like bags on the floor by the nearest bed. He approached them and upon opening the first found an assortment of books, parchments of papers, to Naruto what seemed to be feathers, and also: "What's this?"

Naruto withdrew a stick from the bag.

It was a dark brown colour, likely about a foot long, twelve inches or so, with a slight wiggle to it in the centre, like it had been deliberately designed in some way to take the form of an average stick, even despite its polished finish proving this not to be the case. Naruto peered down at it, before picking up the bag once more and pulling out a book, which, after dropping the bag to the floor, he held in his other hand. He pushed it open to the first page and found inscribed at the top in black ink the markings: _Property of Sakura Haruno._

"Oh, so this is all yours," Naruto said, chucking both the stick and book over to Sakura, who only just managed to catch them both.

Sakura placed the stick into her robe's inner pocket before turning the book over to look at its front, as all the while Naruto began ruffling through the other bag, which was presumably 'his'.

" _Hogwarts: A History_ ," Sakura read aloud. Something, she felt, was very wrong here. What kind of detailed genjutsu world had they been put into, if that was what had truly happened back in the park?

"Oh, here's my stick," Naruto then said, pulling out a lighter coloured, slightly longer and slightly straighter stick from his bag.

The boy looked at it for a short moment, seemingly very interested in it, then gave it a wave, and it was then something unprecedented happened. The bed covers of the nearest bed flew completely off, as if a gust of wind had just bellowed out from Naruto and knocked it all down. Sakura gasped at this, but Naruto himself simply stood wide-eyed, almost as if he anticipated getting told off for creating the mess.

"What was that about?" Sakura wondered, eyes firmly planted on the object in Naruto's hand.

"I dunno," the boy whispered back, and before Sakura could say anything, he gave the stick a deft flick once more.

This time a shower of red sparks flew out, sizzling and disappearing as they fell to the floor. Sakura jumped back fearfully ever so, but Naruto looked quite pleased.

"Cool," he grinned, "This stick can do stuff, Sakura."

"Yeah, but… how?" She said back, "Did you deliberately do all that?"

"Well, no," Naruto admitted, "I just kind of waved it and the stuff just happened."

Sakura moved forwards, taking the stick out of Naruto's hands. "I wonder, the way that bedding just flew off. Maybe it's some kind of chakra receiving rod? Or something like that."

Naruto liked this idea. "Hey yeah, and since I'm a wind type user, it made a gust of wind!"

"Then I wonder why those red sparks came out the second time you did it," Sakura went on, deep in thought. "Hold on," she said, passing Naruto his stick back and then pulling out her own stick from within her pocket, "I'll have a quick go."

Raising the stick into the air, she then brought it down forcefully, and a loud bang sounded out, accompanied by a puff of smoke. Naruto leapt into the air with an exclamation of shock, and Sakura looked down to see that with her movement of the stick she had somehow managed to singe the stone floor beneath, a black scorch mark now etched into the stone.

"What in the hell is going on here?" She muttered to herself.

"I don't know, but don't do that again!" Naruto returned.

Sakura looked up at him and nodded, "Well you're right, clearly we'll have to be more careful with these rod things, whatever they are."

Naruto nodded, then looked around, "Right. Well, what now then?"

Sakura moved over and picked up her bag, pushing _Hogwarts: A History_ inside it as she did so, before flinging it around her back. "I guess we go explore, keep an eye out for Madara, and just find out what the hell is going on."

"Right," Naruto nodded, picking up his bag also.

The two quickly made for the nearest exit, a large, wooden, double-doored one, which creaked loudly as they pushed it open and made their way through it.

With a brisk pace set by Sakura, the two began to make their way down many a stone corridor, in which many a young person moved. They were all dressed the same way as Naruto and Sakura, yet ranged in age from surely younger than a teenager, right up to nearing adulthood. Some, well many, had different coloured ties to the two ninja, and pushing through these odd crowds Naruto peered down at them all, trying, it seemed, to see if they were real or some kind of illusion. Sakura herself was more interested in the walling, as as they walked she had noticed that the paintings on the walls, the very realistic paintings on the walls (more realistic than any art style she had ever seen), were _moving._ This itself was not too odd, seeing as she did have _Sai_ as a team member, but the way in which the drawings moved in and out of each other's portraits, talked as if alive themselves, it all was too odd. Indeed, when what appeared to be a _ghost_ floated out of a nearby wall and out into the corridor, tipping its hanging head towards her as some sort of macabre greeting, she literally had to freeze still in shock.

Using this break in movement to tell Sakura what he had apparently learnt from his examinations thus far, Naruto put forwards, "I think all these people are real you know, Sakura. Like, they're not illusions or anything. This is one powerful genjutsu."

Sakura went to answer, but her voice was cut out by a hand on her shoulder and an unfamiliar voice saying her name.

"Sakura, Menma. Where are you guys going? We have Transfiguration right now."

A short haired, dark skinned boy, likely the same age, stood behind the two of them, hand outstretched and on Sakura's shoulder. Behind him stood another boy, likely their age, Caucasian and with a cropped but messy haircut, and next to him, to both Sakura and Naruto's joy and surprise, was Hinata Hyuga.

Naruto completely ignored the two boys and to the annoyance of two smaller, green and silver tied girls, he pushed forwards through to her. "Hinata! Hey Hinata thank goodness you're here!"

Hinata, eyes wide with complete shock, said nothing, as the two boys she was with shared bemused looks. The dark skinned boy went to share a similar expression with Sakura, but she did not return it, as she was far too interested in Hinata's appearance to care.

"Hinata, how did you get put in this genjutsu? What's up? Do you know what's going on?"

Hinata stayed completely still, but Sakura noted that her face was progressively becoming redder and redder.

"And why are you suddenly showing Hinata all the attention in the world, eh?" asked the boy next to her with a cheeky grin. His voice was accented with a lilt both Naruto and Sakura did not recognise.

The boy closer to Sakura also spoke, "Yeah, and what's a _genjoosu_?"

Naruto simply continued to gaze earnestly into Hinata's milky white eyes, waiting for an answer. Instead the girl started to stutter a bit, face as red as tomato by now, until she finally bellowed out, "MENMA WE HAVE TRANSFIGURATION NOW!"

Naruto reclined backwards at her shout, before turning questioningly to Sakura. The two boys shrugged and began to move off with Hinata, the deep accented one saying to the female, "Honestly, and you call yourself a Gryffindor? Getting all like that around the guy you like!"

Sakura grabbed Naruto by the arm, as the boy wondered aloud, "Hey, why was Hinata like that, you'd think she'd be a little confused by all this too? And what's all this Menma business?"

"Naruto, listen," Sakura said, "I'm not so sure that really is Hinata. And if it is, her mind has been caught in a deeper genjutsu than even us."

Naruto blinked, "What'dya mean?"

"I mean," Sakura said slowly, "That she is in on all of this. Look, she was wearing the same clothes, she also seemed to know those two strangers, she knew about this 'Transfiguration' that we need to go to. I'm just not so sure she's normal Hinata right now, and I'm certain we won't be getting any information outta her. I mean, if it really was her, don't you think she would have come out and told us the situation?"

Naruto's face looked pained. "But she's the one link to our world right now. We can't just let her walk away. This castle or whatever it is seems really big."

"No, I know Naruto. We'll go with them to Transfiguration. And just, play along, alright? Be a ninja and try and blend in whilst we're here. For now."

Naruto nodded, "Yeah, gotcha. Let's go then."

Nodding once more in their typical Team Seven way, the two ran off through the crowds after Hinata and her two male counterparts, following them up spiralling staircases, down candlelit corridors, until, when it seemed like they must have been many floors high up in the castle, the threesome led the two ninja into a room.

Here, behind rows of desks, other teenagers sat, many deep in conversation, others in the process of pulling parchments of paper and quills out from their bags. The room's ceiling was high, and natural light pooled through from the glassless windows. Up front a singular dark desk lay, behind it a chalk blackboard, the kind Iruka Sensei used to use back at the Academy. It was here, standing in the doorway and looking about, that Naruto and Sakura both now noticed Kiba of all people, dressed in robes like everybody else, sat down in the third row, Hinata and her two male friends sat on his right and two spare seats to his left. Sakura pointed out the boy to Naruto, who nodded, and made his way to sit next to him.

"Hey guys, didn't see you at breakfast this morning, what was that about?" Kiba asked conversationally of the two as they took seats. He was doodling with the quill in his hands a little picture of himself sitting upon, of all things, a broomstick.

Sakura went to answer but Naruto spoke out first, much to her annoyance, "Kiba! Kiba, what's going on? Where are we? Did Madara put you here too? Do you know a way back home?"

Kiba watched in complete confusion as Sakura grabbed Naruto by the ear and began whispering something quite aggressively into it.

" _What did I say about blending in, huh_? _We're trying to learn about the situation through subtlety not just shouting out about it like an idiot!_ "

Grinning, Kiba looked away from this and continued his doodle in more detail, "You two are so predictable. Ha. Always fighting over Menma acting like a total knucklehead."

Sakura let go of Naruto and pointed discreetly at Kiba. "D'ya see? He's under the same kind of spell Hinata is. He's useless."

"Yeah okay, you didn't need to pinch my ear so hard to make that point you know, Sakura."

There was the sound of the door opening and all the talking in the room quickly ceased. Both Naruto and Sakura turned in their seat to see who had entered the room. A sour faced, thin elderly lady was now walking down the aisle and towards the front of the room, her robes billowing behind her and a pointed black hat perched upon her head. She spoke smartly as she walked, barking out instructions. "Mr. Weasley please stop talking, you too Mr. Potter. Mr. Inuzuka enough doodling if you please. Miss. Haruno and Mr. Namikaze why do you have nothing out in front of you?"

Sakura and Naruto both shared looks, realising they were being talked to. They looked about the room to see that everybody else had out parchments of paper, quills with accompanying ink pots, and also their own similar sticks that both Naruto and Sakura had. The two ninja reached into their bags and took out such items, and also placed their own sticks out onto the desk in front of them.

The lady at the front was still talking. "Miss Brown, if you could please take the snails from this box and hand one out to everybody. Good girl. And yes everybody this will be a practical lesson-" (a collective hiss of 'yes' from most in the room) "-But do keep your parchments out for some short note taking at the end. Yes, thank you Lavender. Alright, so. Today we shall, once again, be putting into action the Vanishing spell you all took notes down on last Tuesday. And yes, I will be expecting your essays I set in at the end of the lesson. Now, we shall be continuing our attempts to vanish the snails, only this time these snails are far larger. No garden variety snail, I can tell you that much. You all know the incantation and wandwork by now. So, off you all go."

Naruto and Sakura blinked in confusion, thoroughly not following most of what this lady had said. Everybody else though had picked up their 'wands', and were muttering the words " _Evanesco_ ," over and over again, along with flicking their wands down upon the snails.

Naruto side-eyed Sakura. "Erm, Sakura, what the hell is going on?"

"It seems like we're in an Academy or something," Sakura muttered back, "And we're vanishing… snails? For some reason."

"Why would we want to vanish snails?" Naruto asked back.

Sakura shook her head. "I have no idea."

The two watched as a bushy haired girl sitting in the same row as themselves, though across the gap, seemed to, already effortlessly, vanish her snail. The tall, ginger haired boy sat next to her almost gaped at her, before asking loudly, "How'd you always do it so bloody quickly, Hermione?"

"I suspect it has something to do with actually doing the work outside of the classroom, Ronald," this Hermione returned with a hidden smile, and a boy next to 'Ronald', with unkempt, jet black hair and rounded glasses, chuckled good-naturedly at her jibe.

"Copy her," Sakura whispered to Naruto, and after the girl had tapped mid-air in order to re-appear the snail and continue practising, they copied her movements and words exactly, though Naruto, due to his eyes remaining glued to her hand, completely missed his snail.

Sakura looked down at hers to see that the tip of the snail's large and swirled shell was now indeed missing. Somewhat impressed with herself, she turned to see how the other's on her row were doing, and saw that Kiba had somehow only managed to land a crack in his snail's shell, the dark skinned boy and his friend had also had no luck, and Hinata had managed to just about make the snail's shell look slightly less 'there'.

Through the course of the rest of the lesson they learnt through eavesdropping that the names of Hinata and Kiba's two friends were Dean and Seamus, and also that the old lady who seemed to be their teacher was called Professor McGonagall. After some note-taking on the process of vanishing vertebrate animals Professor McGonagall then called for everybody's essays, and after desperately tearing through their bags, both Naruto and Sakura found that 'they' had indeed written said essays, and handed in 'their' written work in due course.

"It's like we've been doing stuff in this world before we even came here, if that makes sense," Sakura had whispered hurriedly to Naruto.

With all this done a bell rang out from somewhere near, and to Professor McGonagall's reminders to continue practising, and an added warning about OWLS (which confused Naruto more than Sakura, as the boy had still not caught on that it was an acronym of some kind, and was still picturing the bird whenever she mentioned them) everybody in the class began to pool out.

"Alright then," Naruto muttered as he and Sakura led Kiba and the rest of the row out of the door and back into the corridor, "What now? We gonna continue to play Academy?"

"Nothing else we can do, is there?" Sakura returned, "We'll just carry on following Hinata or Kiba. That's our best bet I reckon."

At the mention of Kiba, the boy came out of the classroom door, yawning and speaking. "Ugh, man. A free period and I'm going to have to be filling it with Snape's shitty essay. God, I can't wait to drop Potions at NEWT level."

He waited for Naruto to say something, to agree, and after a secret nudge from Sakura, Naruto grinned. "Oh yeah. I hate Potions."

Kiba clearly found the response a bit weird, but he accepted it. "Anyway, you coming to finish it now as well? I was planning on going to that big study room on the ground floor, just in that corridor off the entrance hall. Normally pretty empty."

Naruto nodded slowly, "Erm… yeah, sounds good, Kiba."

"Great, I'll go too. I haven't touched that essay yet," Seamus said, and Dean nodded in agreement.

The group turned to leave, Naruto turning to Sakura wide-eyed and praying with his eyes that she would follow, but as she went to, Hinata spoke out.

"Sakura, where are you going? We have Muggle Studies now, remember?"

Sakura looked between Hinata and the still walking away Naruto, then nodded back to Hinata. "Yeah, of course. Sorry, I just have to return my quill to Naruto."

The girl ran forwards and brought Naruto to a stop, urgently whispering to him as she pretended to go through her bag in search of 'his' quill, "Naruto, listen. Hold fort for now. Just, like, observe what's going on. Ask questions, try to figure out what this world is. I'm sure I'll find you soon. If you don't see me by the time it gets dark, meet me where we first appeared, in that medical wing area."

"But I don't know where it is," Naruto meeped.

"Alright, just stay alert. Looks out for any more signs linking this world to our own. I can't believe that our friends are here as a coincidence. Maybe it's Madara playing games, I don't know. Anyway, I have to go study some Muggles or something now. I'll see you soon."

Naruto watched sadly as Sakura ran off to Hinata, but at Kiba's shout of the name 'Menma', which was apparently his name in this world, he turned back around, and went off with his fellow classmates, headed, apparently, for a study room, to do an essay for a man named 'Professor Snake', or something similar.

Down staircases that moved and through corridors with singing portraits the group traversed, Naruto barely following the conversation about 'Kwid-itch' that they were meant to be having, until they came to a sort of courtyard/quad on the ground floor. The sun floated almost directly above this exposed space of the castle, and on the benches and upon the patches of grass students sat, talking, reading, and messing about with their wands. It was here also, as Kiba strode across the pavement, that Naruto halted to a dead stop.

There, sitting on a bench, alone, in similar robes to Naruto's own but with a green and silver tie tied messily below his neck, was Sasuke Uchiha.

Sasuke.

Naruto's brain now whizzed and worked, though it was not fully functioning. It was as if it had reverted back to pure primal instinct. He forgot where he was, what was happening. All he wanted to do was to talk to Sasuke. He stumbled forwards, stopping by the boy, waiting, thinking of something to say, desperate for something to say, and then…

"Get lost."

This did not deter him, Naruto stammered around for something, and finally with his voice cracking as he spoke, he asked, "Sasuke, are you with us in this world?"

Sasuke's eyes, boring into Naruto under his framed fringe, narrowed slightly, and he said, "I told you to get lost. Don't make me say it again."

Naruto though could not contain both his excitement and his fear. "S-Sasuke, are we friends in this world? Are you back with me and Sakura?"

Sasuke stood up now. "I have no time for the likes of you."

Kiba, Dean, and Seamus moved to be behind Naruto now, and various other faces watched with interest from within the courtyard.

"S-Sasuke, please. You're here aren't you? In this castle place? You've not ran off in this world. You're here with me and Sakura, we're friends right? Tell me, tell me we're friends!"

"I'll tell you what I told you three years ago, Menma," said Sasuke, "being friends with you only slowed me down. I don't need you anymore. All I need… is power."

Naruto felt like he had just been punched in the stomach. He felt tears well up in his eyes which he rapidly blinked away. "So… So, Itachi's in this world too… is he?"

Sasuke's hand had reached into his robes just at the mention of his brother's name. His wand was out and pointed, and he had said some incantation before anyone even knew what was going on. Naruto though, even without his chakra, still had his natural reflexes about him, and he made an incredible dive out of the way, Sasuke's red aura flying out and disappearing into the air where Naruto had been.

People in the crowds gasped as Naruto scrambled back up, but Sasuke was apparently not done. This time he swiped down with his wand, and this time, despite his dive to the side, it seemed Naruto had been caught by Sasuke's spell, as a slight red cut appeared upon his hand. Behind this, the threesome of Kiba, Seamus, and Dean had drew their wands, but seeing this Naruto extended out a hand to them, indicating for them to stop. The Uzumaki reached into his robes and withdrew his own wand, and then pointed it forwards at the Uchiha.

"How dare you mention his name in front of me?" Sasuke yelled before sending another spell Naruto's way.

He easily dodged, then pointed his own wand forwards. Nothing happened.

"I'll kill you!" Sasuke roared onwards, lunging forwards and sending more spells Naruto's way.

The blond managed to dodge each of them, one smashing into a stone pillar far behind and making a small portion of it crumble off and onto the floor.

"Sasuke," Naruto called out, wand pointed forwards and ready, although he had no idea of how to use it, "Sasuke please, I'm sorry. It's just… It's just that you're here! You're here and…"

"SHUT UP!" Sasuke hissed, swirling his wand in the air then lashing it forwards, so that ropes came cascading out of it and towards Naruto.

The boy narrowly dodged this one, and from his floored position flurried his own wand.

The only thing that happened was that a small, spectating boy's robes flew upwards to reveal his name-tagged underwear.

"NOW TAKE THIS!"

"Protego!"

There was a light flash, and a new figure on the scene, and before Naruto could even understand what was going on he was being lifted by his robes to his feet, and a hook nosed, greasy haired man was glaring down into him, Sasuke being held in the man's other hand.

"What do you think the two of you were doing?" He demanded, each word spat out with a clear precision.

Sasuke snarled and struggled under the man's grip, eventually freeing himself. He did not leave however, staying to glare dangerously Naruto's way. Naruto was then dropped as the man pulled back, crossing his arms beneath his cloak.

"Well? What is this meaning of all this? Fighting in the Courtyard?"

Sasuke was clearly not going to answer, so Naruto went to instead.

"We err… we were just."

"Uchiha attacked Menma, sir!" Seamus called out, "Menma just went to say something, and…"

"Be quiet, Finnegan," the man drawled, before drawing his eyes back to Naruto, "What did you say? Hmm?"

"I just," Naruto stammered. His head was not yet steady, too many things were happening, had happened, and it was like his mind was just not processing anything. It had reached capacity.

The man turned to Sasuke, "Uchiha, what did he say to you? I presume it was _you_ , who started the duel."

Sasuke still did not answer, but instead brought his just as black eyes up to match the man's with a look full of contempt.

The man turned now from the two of them and addressed everybody else in the courtyard, "Everybody leave. Go to your Common Rooms or your next lessons. Get out of here… now!"

Naruto watched as everybody left, and felt a particular pang of regret as he watched Kiba, Seamus, and Dean scornfully move off back into the castle.

The man, who Naruto had at least clocked onto being a Professor by now, said, "Well then. I could certainly guess what you two would be fighting about. Though I find it odd that after so long you've even started interacting again." He then spoke in a tone dripping with even more distaste than before, "You realise you could have seriously hurt somebody? That wouldn't have boded very well for you and your future plans, now would it?" He seemed to have directed this comment mostly at Sasuke, "Detention, Six o clock this evening. Both of you. And twenty points from both Gryffindor and Slytherin. An extra five from Gryffindor, actually, for I have no doubt that it was you, Namikaze, that antagonised Uchiha in the first place." Naruto had no idea what this meant, but nodded slowly anyway.

Scowling, the man turned quickly on his heel, and marched off into the castle. Sasuke did the same, though in the opposite direction, leaving Naruto alone in the centre of the courtyard, emotional, in a bit of pain from his cut hand, and mostly extremely confused.

 _ **xxx**_

Eventually Naruto had found the study room Kiba and co had gone to. Here, he deflected their questioning about why he had gone to speak to Sasuke (Apparently, it was common knowledge that they were 'once' best friends), and also learnt the name of his dentition giver: Professor Snape. He also watched with absolute puzzlement as the other three began to write their essays for said Professor: _Moonseed: its properties and uses for potions besides Moonseed poison._ All three of them had complained loudly that last week (which Naruto had learnt had been just the first week back to 'school') Snape had given them a similar essay regarding Moonstone, and they all expressed worry at the idea of getting given such long essays each and every week.

To occupy himself as these three all scribbled away, Naruto began to practise with his wand. He found a very certain wrist gesture to make a nearby stall topple over (which, after the fifth time, he was told to 'knock off' by Dean) and he also further practised the Vanishing spell he had been shown in McGonagall's Transfiguration, though he had no luck making his quill disappear.

After an hour or so was done, The three of them led Naruto up to what was the 'Gryffindor Common Room' on the seventh floor, a group, it transpired, that he was apparently apart of. It was quite a lovely place (Through a talking portrait of a fat lady, who required the password: _'Mimbulus mimbletonia_ ' to get through) with a fire crackling to the side, and comfy looking red chairs set all around. They spent an hour here playing a game called 'Exploding snap' with a pack of cards, and after this, Kiba revealed to Naruto that they now had their last lesson of the day: Divination.

Naruto however declined to go with them (much to the shock of everybody else, and a joking accusation from Seamus that 'Menma' had chosen today to be a 'bad boy', in an attempt most likely to impress Sakura) as he knew from Sakura's tie that she was a Gryffindor too, and at some point she would be returning to this very common room. Wanting to be with Sakura most of all, he decided to wait about, playing with the cards by himself, hoping that Sakura would turn up before his detention with Professor Snape.

Sakura, however, did not return. By Four o'clock the other Gryffindor's in Naruto's year had all arrived, but just not the person he needed most. Sitting about awkwardly waiting, he learnt a few important details at least. They were in a castle called Hogwarts (which Naruto realised had been on the title of Sakura's book, in her bag) and also, due to a growing panic that had made him ask, learnt that Snape's detention would be in the dungeons, a place, he figured, that would be found best by simply continuously heading down staircases until he could no longer. He also noted with glee when it hit five that Konohamaru was in this strange world too, also in the Gryffindor club, as the boy clambered through the hole with his friends Moegi and Udon chatting animatedly about a prank he had pulled in Charms class.

When it hit half past five, Naruto decided to move and go in search of Snape's office, and it proved to be a smart move, as very quickly in his journey through Hogwarts he became hopelessly lost. At five to five he had just about arrived on the ground floor, but from here had even more trouble finding a passage down to the dungeons, and once in the dungeons at five past, he still had no idea which door he needed to go through. Due to this, he simply knocked on every single one as he passed, and finally, as he knocked on a door and made to move to the next, he heard the voice of Professor Snape call out, "Come in."

Naruto entered the room and shivered. It was cold, dark, and dank. Upon the shelves scaling the walls were large glass jars of who-knows-what floating within them. Sitting down behind the main desk was Snape, who did not even look up at Naruto's arrival, and sitting on a seat by a small one man table was Sasuke, cross armed and clearly annoyed to be there. Noting a table and chair of his own waiting next to Sasuke's, Naruto took a seat.

"Mr. Namikaze. You're late." Snape spoke out, a harsh undertone clear within his voice.

"I-I got lost," Naruto replied.

"A terrible excuse if there ever was one. Do you really want to play me for a fool, Namikaze?"

Snape now finally looked up, his gaze a harsh one, glaring into Naruto. Naruto gulped, then shook his head.

"I would hope not," Snape said softly.

He then waved his wand in the air and upon the tables in front of both Naruto and Sasuke two bowls, one large and one small, appeared. The larger bowl, Naruto noted with disgust, was full to the brim with dead caterpillars; green, fat, and hairy.

"Squeeze out the caterpillar juice into the bowl," Snape instructed almost lazily, "You are not permitted to use magic."

Sasuke immediately stuck his hand in and then squished the caterpillar over the smaller bowl. Its juice exploded outwards and leaked into the bowl, but also all over Sasuke's hand. He put the remains back into the big bowl, then picked up a new one. Naruto watched him do this a few times, before realising that he too had to do it, and so began to work himself.

The detention was really quite horrible. For two hours Naruto sat there in silence, taking out caterpillars, squeezing out their innards, and repeating. And when he had finished his bowl, Snape, with a cruel smile, had simply waved his wand and more caterpillars had appeared, fresh and ready for juicing. Three hours into the detention the sound of Snape's quill scribbling away had stopped, and Naruto watched as the Professor stood and made his way over to the door.

"Do keep up the good work," he said slowly before he left, "I shall be back quite shortly."

Naruto pretended to keep working a few seconds after the door had closed shut to his office, but once he was quite sure Snape had moved off to do whatever he planned to do, he ceased, and turned to Sasuke instead.

The boy simply continued squeezing the caterpillars, a look of anger still visible upon his face.

Naruto wanted to say something, _had_ to say something, but what?

"Sas-"

"Would you stop trying to talk to me?"

Sasuke, still squeezing caterpillars, glared up at Naruto.

With a feeling of defiance, Naruto shook his head, "Nope. I'm never gonna stop."

"You did for a good three years there," Sasuke returned, "I don't know why you're trying all over again. Just leave me alone, okay? I don't ever want to speak to you."

"Sasuke, not in this world or in our own, will I ever give up on you."

Sasuke stopped what he was doing, then turned in his seat, to properly face Naruto.

"Listen," he said, "Please don't start all this again, okay? I have no time to run around playing wizard with you and Sakura anymore. No matter how much you try, we shall never be friends again."

Naruto grinned, "Well, Madara's definitely captured you right, Sasuke. You once said, after all, that you no longer wanted to play ninja with us, back when you left the village. Though it didn't seem like you were exactly trying to _kill_ me back in the courtyard, so that's different I guess."

Sasuke only seemed to reply to the last part of Naruto's sentence. "I didn't try to kill you back there," he said, "Because I still have things to learn from this wretched old place. Once I've learnt all I need to learn though, killing you won't be a problem for me. What's one more murder in this world?"

Naruto smiled slightly to himself, then turned back to juicing his caterpillars. The two worked on in silence a moment longer, before Naruto said, "Sasuke, you know I gotta try. This world. This Hogwarts business. You realise it's not real, right?"

Sasuke turned with a roll of his eyes to Naruto, "What are you on about?"

"All of this. It's genjutsu. Well, at least we think it is. Tell me you know that, please. Tell me that you're the real Sasuke and that you… you're here too. We could, we could work together, to escape. We…" Naruto hadn't even realised that tears had brimmed in his eyes.

Sasuke looked at him cynically, but before he could speak, the office door swung open and Snape marched in.

"No lollygagging, gentlemen," he said as made his way back towards his desk.

Wiping at his eyes, Naruto got back to work, not daring to spare a glance this genjutsu Sasuke's way.

The detention lasted another hour, and it was at Eleven o'clock that Naruto found his way back to the Fat Lady Portrait and remembered the password. He, of course, had become hopelessly lost in his search for the Common room, and had twice had to run away from a singing poltergeist who each time upon seeing Naruto had decided to follow him and rain cutlery from the kitchens down below. He had also bumped into a rather grubby looking man and his cat, the man apparently being staff, and had only barely managed to explain what he was doing walking around the corridors so late without getting into trouble.

Inside the Common room, Naruto was supremely disappointed to find that Sakura wasn't there. Wondering where she could have possibly got to, he sensibly decided against going out looking for her, and instead took a seat by the fire next to a curled up, ugly looking cat, and in his waiting, promptly fell asleep.

He awoke some moments later to Sakura's face smiling down into his.

"S-Sakura," Naruto sleepily drawled, before properly coming to and leaping up in his chair, "Oh! Sakura! You're back!"

"I've been in the library," Sakura said, seemingly pre-emptively guessing Naruto's brewing question. She fell down next to Naruto in a spare seat, smiling still, "And Naruto, I've got loads to tell you, loads!"

"Yeah," Naruto said with an itch of his head, "And I've got stuff to tell you, too."

"Oh yeah, well you go first. I've got loads."

"Well Sakura… It's Sasuke, he's in this world too."

Sakura's eyes lit up at the name, but she remained silent, before finally saying, "Well yes, I guess that sort of makes sense. It seems everyone else is, after all."

"Wait, what? You expected this?"

"No, no I didn't expect Sasuke to be here. But what I mean is, all of the other rookies are here too. And some others. It appears that Madara has carefully chosen the people who are a part of this genjutsu world. Sasuke… Well, he must know that Sasuke is going to have an effect on us."

Somewhat put out by her levelled response, Naruto pushed Sakura for her learned information.

"Well," Sakura grinned, clearly bursting with news, "Where to start? This is an incredibly detailed world. I went to the library with Hinata after Muggle Studies, which I was actually pretty good at –they don't have Television here – and I just stayed there reading all the basic material. So, listen, we're students in our fifth year of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm a witch and you're a wizard! I mean, in this world, at least. We're part of the house Gryffindor, brave and loyal. The other houses are Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. This wizarding world we're part of is separate from the Muggle world, a world that is kind of like our own back home I guess, at least for the average villager, except there's no ninjutsu or chakra or anything."

"Sounds lame," Naruto put in.

"Well, maybe. It seemed quite interesting from my Muggle Studies class anyway."

"So, what then? We're students here? What's the point? What's Madara playing at?"

"Well there's more you see. I was reading the _Daily Prophet_ archive they have in the library too – the newspaper they have – you know, and our Head Master Dumbledore-"

"What? Haha. Dumbledore?"

"-Dumbledore, claims that a dark wizard called You-Know-Who-"

"That's not a name!"

"Is back from the dead, and also, a boy in our year called Harry Potter fought him! So I figured maybe that's gonna be a bit important. If there's a big bad guy like him around, then he's gotta be important somehow, otherwise why would Madara make him?"

"Why would Madara make any of this?" Naruto questioned loudly. Two seventh years across the way glared his way at his shout.

"Well yeah, that's true," Sakura nodded, "I feel like this is very much a waiting game Naruto, you know what I mean? Madara hasn't trapped us here for no reason. There's something going on, and it's surely got to involve us."

Naruto nodded slowly. "Yeah, you're right. So what's say we go find this You-Know-Why guy, if he's so important, and find out what exactly Madara _is_ up to?"

"Waiting game, Naruto," reminded Sakura, "We have no chakra, no weapons, no nothing. We just have these wands, which we barely are able to use. There may be a reason Madara put us in this school to start off with. Perhaps we're meant to learn how to wield magic, you know?"

"Learn?" Naruto repeated drearily.

"Yes, Naruto, learn. Now, anyway, we both need to get to bed."

Naruto shot up out of his seat, "Bed? I'm not going to bed! We've got things to do, Sakura!"

"Waiting game! Wait-ing-gaaaame. And anyway Naruto, we have classes in the morning. We need to sleep."

With this Sakura made her way over to a staircase to the side, and made haste up it. Naruto watched her go, a feeling of trepidation overwhelming. Why did he feel like Sakura was enjoying this genjutsu trick a bit too much? Dejectedly he made to follow her, but found that upon taking the steps up they magically transformed into a slide, sending him on his backside flying back.

"Boys Dormitories mate. No sleeping in your girlfriend's bed tonight," one of the Seventh years said with a point to another door.

Dusting himself off angrily Naruto made his way to this stairway.

This Hogwarts was a strange place indeed.

* * *

 _ **A/N- Well, here goes this crossover fic. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please remember to review! Massively appreciated and very helpful too. Hope you return for the second chapter! Thanks for reading.**_

 _ **Edit- Well, first canonical error! And in the first chapter no less. And I thought I was doing so well. Yeah, so basically in Fifth year the students don't actually have free periods, that's in the Sixth and Seventh, but obviously in this story they do. Now, I have pretty much stuck to Rowling's original subject timetable, and Thursday and Friday are pretty much not mentioned by her, so these free periods that shouldn't be there take place on these two days, so I'm keeping to canon with that at least. You can try and rationalise it if you would like, as of course this isn't quite the same Hogwarts, but really, I just ask you let me off on this one! It only really goes against a sentence in the Half-Blood Prince where Ron and Harry celebrate the fact that they now have free periods for NEWT level, it's not that big a deal! Cheers to anybody who have read this!**_


	2. The Lead

_**ROAD TO WIZARD**_

* * *

 ** _THE LEAD_**

* * *

Naruto's dreams that night were paradoxically both vivid, yet so unclear.

Images of Madara's swirled mask stalked Naruto sleep. He spoke, in the dream was speaking to Naruto, but anything he said was quickly forgotten. The name Menma, Menma, _Menma_ , was repeated, and talk of some kind of wand floated throughout Naruto's mind. When he awoke that morning, drenched in sweat and curtains already flung wide open with all others in the dormitory already having left, he felt only joy to be returning to the waking world, even if the waking world was this strange Hogwarts place, so far from home.

Having located both his bed and a trunk full of 'his clothes and items' the previous night, Naruto quickly got changed into his robes, then made his way down into the Common room, which was completely devoid of students, except for one. Sakura sat in the corner, wand raised, and a book floating in front of her.

"Woah. Sakura, how'd you do that?" Naruto asked, walking over to the girl.

She set the book down and smiled, "The wingardium leviosa spell. I saw that Hermione Granger girl use it last night – the one we copied in Transfiguration yesterday – so thought I'd give it a go once I was alone. We're a bit late for breakfast by the way. You woke up late, though I don't blame you."

"Can I do that spell?" Naruto questioned excitedly.

Sakura nodded and gave Naruto a knowing smile. "You technically already should be able to. It's a pretty basic spell which we have… well we _would_ have learnt in our first year here."

Before Naruto could withdraw his wand to start practising, Sakura moved to the exit. "Come on," she said, "We should get going."

Leading the way for Naruto, Sakura brought the two of them down to the Entrance Hall and then through the doors to the Great Hall, where at once Naruto gave an extremely loud gasp. The hall, lit bright by the floating candles up above, was absolutely chocked full with food. Every single type of breakfast one could think of was available on the tables, and as Sakura led Naruto over to the Gryffindor table, the blond continuously leant over sat students as he walked, checking out with greed what they were eating.

"All this food, Sakura! This is amazing. I don't even know what half this stuff is but the smell is just incredible!"

Sakura stopped and took a seat with the other fifth year Gryffindor's, plopping in next to her fellow Girl's Dormitory stayer Hermione, Naruto sitting in on Sakura's right. Opposite, Kiba was greedily tearing into some bacon, Hinata on his left, and other faces that Naruto recognised from classes the previous day also sat in close proximity.

"Oh boy, this is so great!" Naruto grinned, before grabbing literally anything he could get his hands on, and stuffing it on his plate.

At his hand flying in and stealing the remaining scraps of bacon right under the ginger haired 'Ronald''s (as Naruto remembered him) outstretched grasp, said boy turned with a strained expression Naruto's way. "Bloody hell, Menma. You fed back home? Take anymore and you'll be having the House Elves off their break and onto second helpings."

Naruto glanced up to the boy, meat hanging out his mouth, then took a huge gulp before smiling sheepishly. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, erm, Ronald."

"Ron will do mate," Ron returned with a slightly bemused expression.

Breakfast continued onwards, Naruto wolfing down food quite happily, and Sakura coolly entering conversations with all around. Naruto watched her through the corner of his eye with a mixture of admiration and slight suspicion. He could understand her getting on easily with the genjutsu versions of Hinata and Kiba, but the way with ease she spoke to Lavender Brown about how bad Professor Snape was (despite the fact that it was only Naruto out of the two of them who had experienced him) and the way she managed to hold conversation about a band called the Weird Sisters that she surely knew nothing about, just made him a little anxious. Was it bad of him to hold it against her for thriving in this environment? Although, Naruto thought, this did not matter, as they would be leaving this world soon enough.

Thinking all of this and letting his eyes wander, it made Naruto almost spit out his toast when he noticed over on the Hufflepuff table the Ino-Shika-Cho combination: Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi, eating away and enjoying their breakfast.

"Sakura," Naruto said, nudging her in the ribs. He nodded over to the three Hufflepuff's and she nodded upon seeing them.

"Yeah," she said under her breath, "I saw Neji Hyuga in the corridors yesterday when coming back from the library. I figured there'd be more of our world people here."

"Why are they over there though?" Naruto asked her, "Why aren't they over here in Gryffindor?"

"I don't know. I guess they didn't sort into Gryffindor when they first came to Hogwarts," answered Sakura, "According to the books I've read, Hufflepuff is home to loyal and hardworking students," she paused in thought for a short moment, "Though I suppose those are pretty general traits. I think the Sorting Hat probably looks a bit deeper into the students when assigning them a House."

"Wait, hold up. What's a Sorting Hat?"

Dean Thomas paused mid chew to give Naruto a questioning look upon overhearing this.

"It doesn't matter," Sakura said back, "If you wanna know all about this world, _Menma_ , you best get to reading some books." Once again Sakura paused in a moment's thought, then she glanced back up to the Hufflepuff table, "Though now I think about it, you'd think Shikamaru would definitely be a Ravenclaw, seeing as Kakashi-Sensei always says he's a genius and stuff."

"Shikamaru? A genius?"

This was the voice of Seamus, who had overheard Sakura saying this. Sakura and Naruto shared a look as the boy went on.

"I've never seen the guy even lift a wand. And he fails all of his tests. Didn't he sleep through all of his end of third year exams?"

Sakura smiled. "Well tell you what, that does sound a lot like him."

"Shikamaru's a good guy, for a non-Gryffindor," Kiba now waded into the conversation, "I don't hang out with him much outside of Herbology, but you know, I definitely couldn't vouch for him being any kind of genius, Sakura."

"If there's a genius in this school, it's Hermione," said Ron with a wave of his fork, "She's the only one who about gets one hundred percent on everything without breaking a sweat."

"Thanks, Ron," Hermione said in a quiet voice.

"Ooh, and that Sasuke Uchiha, he's a genius too," Parvati added in, then shared a giggle with Lavender.

"Yeah," Lavender said with a smirk, "A genius who's also the hottest guy in school."

"He's also completely dismissive of you and everybody else around him," reminded Hermione with a roll of her eyes.

"And a Slytherin," said Neville.

"That Sasuke fella is just as bad as Malfoy! Well no, he's not just as bad, but he really gets on my wick," said Ron, helping himself to a generous portion of baked beans from a small silver pot as he spoke.

Sakura, looking at Ron, couldn't help notice the eyes of Harry Potter, sitting next to him, glance up and over to the Slytherin table. "He's alright," the boy answered.

Ron though, continued on his tirade, "I mean sure, at least he's not some Muggle hating Death Eater like half the others from them lot, and, well-" Ron spoke in a quiet whisper for the next part, "I know he's got a bit of a tragic past and all, but seriously, he got caught _in Hogwarts_ researching and practising _dark magic_. Dark magic, Harry. He may not be in league with You-Know-Who but it seems to me he's just as dark a wizard as any You-Know-Who supporter." Ron bit into his toast, and with crumbs falling out of his mouth, he added knowledgably, "Wouldn't be surprised if he ended up making his own little dark wizard group, to be honest. A dark wizard group for slightly less racist gits."

"Sasuke is not a dark wizard."

Naruto's statement seemed to stun everybody in hearing range to silence. Ron turned with a raised eyebrow to Naruto and placed down his cutlery.

"I'm sorry, did I not mention the part about him doing dark magic two years ago?"

"I don't care what you say Sasuke did. He is a good person."

Ron gave a look to Hermione, as if hoping that the girl would take over the conversation, but seeing the girl simply watching Naruto's face with an expression of sympathy, he shrugged and looked away.

"Well, whatever you say. Harry, what time is Quidditch practice again? Harry?"

Harry, who had been looking up the hall Dumbledore's way, as if trying to catch his eye, turned with a jump, "Hm? Oh. Six, Ron. It's at six."

As he spoke, suddenly, the flapping of a hundred wings sounded. Swooping down now from up high was an army of owls, white, brown, and grey, each with packages or letters tied to their thin legs. Naruto let out a little yelp of fear that went unnoticed and ducked his head at the coming onslaught, but the arrival of a beady eyed screech owl landing on the plate of sausages in front of him and nibbling on his blonde spikes in order to get his attention forced him out of hiding.

"Huh? What'd you want with me?" Naruto croaked fearfully, looking up at the owl stood in front of him, impatiently waiting.

"Well, I'd assume he wants you to take your letter, dummy," Kiba said with a raised eyebrow.

Naruto shot a glare his way before clumsily untying the white envelope from around the bird's right leg. It clicked happily when he did this but did not yet move off. Naruto raised a hand and patted it twice.

"Erm, thank you."

Chirping at this, the bird then took flight again, sending the sausages spiralling backwards and into a third year's face. Naruto took the letter out from the envelope and read.

 _Dear Menma,_

 _Hope your second week has been going as well as your first. I know we've said it before, but your father and I are so proud of you, and we're confident that you'll make us proud with your OWL results at the end of the year. Keep up the good work in classes._

 _Your father has been working closely with the Minister this past week. Apparently they're wanting more progress on the Sirius Black case, and Kingsley sent Minato to liaise with Fudge's office. Your father doesn't think very much of the man. Those attacks he's waged on Dumbledore are just disgraceful, and you'd do well to ignore them darling. All that rubbish they're spouting about Harry Potter as well. You make sure you stay by that boy's side. He'll be having a hard time._

 _Anyway, write back and let us know what's been happening your end. We miss you always, Menma._

 _Lots of love,_

 _Mum (and Dad!) xxx_

"What does it say?" Sakura asked, leaning over to read the letter.

Naruto however was in complete shock.

He let the letter fall to the table, eyes staring into the space he once held it. Seeing him like this, Sakura's face immediately became concerned. She took the letter and quickly read through it before glancing back to Naruto.

"I… I have parents."

He said it very quietly, only so Sakura could hear it. The girl squeezed Naruto's knee underneath the table in an attempt to comfort him, unsure, if she was honest, of what emotions Naruto was actually feeling that moment. Naruto moved a hand to his eye and rubbed at it, before looking to Sakura.

"Naruto… I."

Naruto's hand reached out and grabbed the letter, before scrunching it up.

"They're not my parents," he said, "My parents are dead."

As it was a Friday, Naruto and Sakura and their fellow Gryffindor's all had Charms first period with a short bearded man by the name of Professor Flitwick. Naruto in particular found his squeaky little voice very funny, and the boy stifled spurts of laughter as Flitwick, upon his tower of books, squeaked out instructions on advanced Summoning Charms, which for now, the class only took notes on.

Second period meant the return for Naruto to the dungeons, and his next meeting with Professor Snape. It also for Sakura meant her first sight of Sasuke Uchiha in a long, long time.

She spared a fleeting look to the boy, standing in the opposite Slytherin line and waiting for entrance into the classroom, but then quickly drew her gaze away. It seemed, though seeing him was clearly having an effect on her, that she wished to remain unfazed by his presence. It was, after all, not actually Sasuke. Or at least this is what Sakura had to keep reminding herself.

"Inside."

The classroom door had creaked open, and Professor Snape's droning voice sounded out. Sakura and Naruto originally moved to the front of the dingy little room for a seat, but noting it being occupied by only Slytherin's, quickly retreated backwards, to where all the Gryffindor's apparently chose to sit. They took seats on a table with both Hinata and Kiba, and waited for the lesson to begin.

"Today we shall be continuing our work on antidotes," said Snape now from the front. With a flick of his wand a series of instructions appeared on the blackboard behind him, "The Anti-Paralysis Potion. Instructions on the board. Proceed."

Sakura and Naruto watched as everybody quickly got to work, taking out cauldrons, knives, spoons, scales, and other potion making utensils. They followed Hinata essentially, though only up until all the necessary equipment was found. When it became time to start brewing the potion as per the instructions on the board, Sakura took control of her own agency, Naruto of course still copying her. She struggled finding the correct ingredients, not quite knowing what a Mandrake root was or looked like when the important time came to add a droplet from it to her brew, but she persevered. By the time Snape called an end to the potion-making, Sakura's potion glimmered a light purple, not far off to the pink colour the Anti-Paralysis potion was meant to take.

Snape made his way around the class, peering into cauldrons as he did so and occasionally making comments. Draco Malfoy was awarded five house points for his potion, and Sasuke was awarded ten (much to the annoyed muttering of the Gryffindor students) as apparently his potion was completely without fault.

He made no comment to Hinata's potion, meaning that it had likely gone perfectly well, and he smiled cruelly upon looking into Kiba's.

"What, Inuzuka, is this?" he said, looking up to the boy who was looking extremely sheepish and embarrassed, Slytherin heads turned to watch the interaction.

"Well, um, it's the antidote you told us to make, sir."

"This, Inuzuka, is _not_ the antidote I told you to make. This, Inuzuka, is a failed, lazy attempt at making the potion I _told_ you to make. More competence in potion making is displayed by my first year Hufflepuff students."

The Slytherin's all laughed at this jibe. Kiba looked down to his feet, face red, as smirking, Snape moved onto Sakura's.

He made no comment, much to Sakura's joy, who had not quite expected any teacher to be quite so volatile, but he sneered down into Naruto's face when he moved over to the boy. Naruto held his breath.

"A deeper purple than Miss Haruno's. Passable but not at all commendable." Naruto smiled slightly, though his relief at seemingly doing well was misplaced as Snape spoke on, "I suppose you copied her exactly then? And yet still you cannot quite succeed, Namikaze. You may not be the troublesome prankster you were in your first year, but you still have about as much talent as you did back then. Five points from Gryffindor for cheating. And a zero for you too."

Naruto narrowed his eyes and glared Snape's way as the Professor moved onwards, commenting only on Harry's potion furthermore ("Another zero, I should think, Potter.").

For the next period Sakura and Naruto had to begrudgingly part, as Sakura had a free, whilst Naruto had Divination, which this time he decided he would be attending.

"Don't worry," Sakura said as she began to move down the corridor away from Naruto, "I'll go do some more research in the library. I think I'll go look for any mention of our world in the books. See if I can find any hint of a way back."

Divination, it transpired, was another very amusing lesson for Naruto. Trapped up in the smoky tower sat next to a girl he did not know, he could barely hold in his laughter at the mere sight of Professor Trelawney and her magnified bug eyes. The woman, noticing Naruto's strained face, at first thought he was bursting to make a prediction, rather than holding back bursting into laughter, so stopped speaking about dream interpretations to them all and centred the class' attention onto him. Not knowing what to do, Naruto made up a prediction about an army of owls coming to attack Hogwarts soon, which to his relief Trelawney twisted into an 'accurate prediction' about the OWL exams coming that summer. Though she added a splash of fanfare to it by claiming it would result in some serious casualties, and maybe, possibly, death.

For the rest of the hour Naruto earnestly told the girl he sat with about his dreams from the previous couples days, leaving out the dream he had last night, as it unsettled him to talk about for some reason. The girl interpreted his dreams to mean that Naruto would be fighting his inner demons in the months to come, and also spoke in great detail about the danger rabbits posed to him. He didn't quite understand what she meant, and certainly didn't understand how any of this divination worked, so when it came to his go at interpreting her dreams, he simply made up more predictions from the top of his head.

Not daring to go look for Sakura and the library by himself, Naruto spent the next couple free periods with Kiba and Hinata. It was shockingly easy to relax and talk to these warped versions of them. In fact, Naruto found himself more than once forgetting that he was at Hogwarts under Madara Uchiha's genjutsu, as it truly did seem that he was simply socialising with his friends from back home; Hinata, as ever, red faced and awkward around him, Kiba brash but easy-going.

At lunch Naruto met up with Sakura again in the Great Hall, and together they enjoyed some very nice food that they were not accustomed to back home. Sakura explained to Naruto how she had found nothing mentioning shinobi like themselves, although ninjas did once exist in this world, in a place called Japan.

"So let's go to Japan then. This is a lead!" Naruto bellowed eagerly when she had said all of this to him.

"No, Naruto. If you had read what I read you'd know there'd be no point. It was a book on magic in Ancient Japan just talking about ninja using Disillusionment Charms to conceal themselves during espionage. There's no chakra, jutsu, or hidden villages. It's all just more wizards living in secrecy and doing stuff."

Sakura led Naruto away to do some homework next, which he struggled along with. Sakura, who enjoyed learning about all these new things, quickly caught on to what she was meant to be doing each time, and produced basic but passable pieces of homework for each subject they tackled, which she was notably proud of.

Their sixth period lesson was called Defence against the Dark Arts, and according to Sakura, would be the lesson of particular importance.

"Because," she began to explain when Naruto had asked her why on the way up to the classroom, "As we established yesterday, I reckon this You-Know-Who figure may be important. He certainly strikes me as an interesting figure for Madara to have added to his genjutsu; reminds me of Madara actually, or that creep Orochimaru. And anyway, I just reckon if Madara's about in this world, he's going to be linked to the Dark Arts. Not to mention, if we've got fighting to do down the road in our attempts to find Madara and get home, we're going to need to know how to with our wands. This is the class that really teaches us."

The two found themselves the first at the classroom, and so waited by the door. Soon enough the other Gryffindor's started to appear and formed a queue behind them, until everybody was waiting for the Professor to let them inside.

Ten minutes into what should have been the lesson, Sakura began to become very impatient.

"What is this Professor playing at? Imagine if the Sensei's back at the Academy acted like this? We wouldn't have learnt to make a basic clone at a rate like this."

"Well, to be fair, Sakura, Kakashi-Sensei was like this back home. Always turning up late and supplying some rubbish excuse."

"Kakashi what now?"

Sakura and Naruto's heads shot around. Kakashi Hatake, dressed in green robes, mask still covering his bottom face and sharingan eye gone, was walking towards them from down the corridor, coming to a stop by the door.

"K-Kakashi," Naruto bumbled out.

"Hmm, I must say, I hate you too much for us to both be on first name terms, Menma. I'd stick to Professor Hatake if I were you."

Naruto nodded, but couldn't hide his grin at seeing his Sensei.

"And why are you late this time?" Hermione asked from the back of the queue. She had her hand on her hip, and looked as if she had asked this question many times.

"Oh yeah, sorry guys," Kakashi said with a rub of the back of his head, "I got caught up having a meaningful discussion about the mortality of men with a particularly insightful ghost on the third floor."

Hermione simply rolled her eyes and smiling behind his mask, Kakashi pushed open the door and indicated for Sakura to go inside. She did so, and she and Naruto took seats at the front, Hinata, Kiba, Dean, and Seamus joining them on their row.

"Sooo," Kakashi said as he moved to the front, withdrawing his wand as he did so, "What were we learning about last time then?"

There was a pause as he leant down against his desk, the class silent.

"No seriously. What were we learning about last time?"

Hermione's hand shot up and she spoke before Kakashi's lazy eyes could even move to her.

"We were reviewing hexes sir. Learning both how to use them and defend against them. You had us using the Twitchy-Ears hex on one another, chosen for its safety, and also made us practice basic non-verbal deflection magic, which is effective against non-powerful magic and is a minor version of the shield charm."

"And crucial for duelling, yes." Kakashi took over. He stood off his desk and began to twirl his wand around and around with his fingers, pacing the front, "So. I hope you continued practising after Monday's lesson. Today, you see, we're going to be doing something a bit more dangerous." He flicked his wand towards the blackboard, and the words: 'EXPULSO CURSE' appeared. "I would suppose that up until now, you've never really looked at curses. Jinxes and hexes are more appropriate for the first four years, I'm guessing."

"Didn't that Moody teach us about the Unforgivable Curses last year?" Dean Thomas asked aloud.

Kakashi paused, "Really? Hmm, well from what I got told by Dumbledore, the man you had teaching this class last year _really_ wasn't supposed to be, so I think we can ignore that little titbit. Now, the Expulso curse is a very powerful spell, capable of causing immense explosions and blasting the target apart. If a wizard or witch pulls this one out in a duel, well, you know they definitely mean business. There's no fancy wandwork really, it just requires a steady hand and a point, though you really need to mean for it to explode. You've gotta really have the fire inside your belly for this one. It's not dissimilar to Confringo, the blasting curse, though that one is slightly more destructive, I would say."

"Please, sir!" Hermione called out with her hand raised into the air.

"Hermione?"

"Will we… Will we be practising this curse on each other? It's just that, um…"

It appeared that her trepidation about using this spell in the classroom was shared by many of the class, judging by their faces. Only really Naruto looked thrilled to be learning this spell, and Harry in the middle row at least looked distinctly less unsettled by the thought than the rest of his peers.

"No, Hermione, no," Kakashi said with a cool shake of his head, "I would never have you practising this spell in my classroom. Think of the mess it would cause. No, instead you'll be practising on me."

There was a muttering between all as Kakashi waved his wand. The front of the classroom became magically clear. The teacher's desk and the drawers at the side all disappeared, leaving a large empty space in its wake.

"Line up, line up. Come on now Lavender don't look so nervous, how often do you get to fire a curse like this at your teacher?"

"Not often, but I've thought about sending one Snape's way more than a few times," Ron muttered under his breath, making much of the line snigger.

The first time through the line basically nobody seemed to really do anything. Most people barely even created a draft after shouting out the curse, and it was only for Harry, Hermione, and to Sakura's surprise, Naruto, that Kakashi had to deflect anything. Though, he did so extremely casually, and as Hermione pointed out, if any of them had done the spell completely correctly, he would have had to use a strong shield charm to properly neutralise it.

Everybody took turns practising again, and it was finally with Harry that any serious progress was made. Kakashi shouted a "Protego!" when the visible blue blast waves came exploding forwards, but it transpired he had conjured a far too weak shield charm, and after an initial stop, Kakashi then found himself cascading backwards and onto the floor. There was a silence as he picked himself back up, chuckling lightly to himself.

"Well then. Harry," he said, "That was fantastic. Really. I totally underestimated you there with using a basic protego. Twenty points to Gryffindor for excellent duelling."

The lesson went on, Naruto and Sakura both being awarded five house points each for also producing a more powerful curse. Though now Kakashi used a stronger version of the shield charm, which he skilfully cast non-verbally, and he suffered no more embarrassing falls.

The lesson ended and Naruto and Sakura left in high spirits, enjoying both seeing Kakashi, or Professor Hatake, and also thoroughly having enjoyed the lesson.

"Imagine! If Dumbledore had not found Professor Hatake for the post, the Ministry would have chosen a different teacher in his place. That would have been terrible. He's so good, nearly as good as Lupin," enthused Hermione as they all walked away.

"What? Where'd you hear that?" asked Ron.

"It was in the news, Ron," Hermione answered, "It was a new Educational Degree added before the year started, part of Fudge's horrid little war on Dumbledore for telling everybody the truth about You-Know-Who. Thank god Professor Hatake took the post though. Can't begin to imagine the kind of person the Ministry would have planted in order to shamefully spy on Dumbledore and Hogwarts."

"Someone useless, I would wager," put in Harry.

"Yeah, we'd end up having to have you teaching us, seeing as you're the best in the year," Ron said to Harry with a laugh.

Lessons now over for the day, both Sakura and Naruto decided that some relaxing was in order. The Gryffindor Quidditch team captain, Angelina Johnson, had arranged for the team to practice that evening, so the two ninja went out to watch them from the stands, both extremely curious to find out exactly what Quidditch was.

"This looks incredible!" Naruto grinned as he watched the team zoom about on their brooms, Ron at the moment fumbling a quaffle comically to roaring laughter from his older twin brother's Fred and George.

"It's really popular. The season starts in November, and pretty much everybody goes to the matches, so if we're blending in, we'll be going too."

"I don't mind," Naruto replied, "I could watch them all day. Imagine how useful one of those brooms would be in our world. Can you just imagine me flying on one of them, arm outstretched with a rasengan in my palm?"

"Well you'd need an extra broom, seeing as you can't do rasengan without a clone's helping hands," Sakura giggled teasingly.

Naruto sank down, cheeks red.

The two returned to the Common room for the evening, where they spent the rest of the night socialising. At frequent intervals, and the height of enjoying his time, Naruto would suddenly be hit by the realisation that none of what he was experiencing was actually real, and he would fall into a short-lived mood, where he would not talk to anyone but Sakura. He was also getting used to the name Menma, which annoyed him also.

The next morning Naruto was feeling quite good about himself however.

"Are you ready, Sakura?" he called out brashly as he arrived down in the Common room, where she was waiting for him in order to go down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

She raised an eyebrow, "Um, for what?"

"Well to get looking for Madara of course. Now we got those lessons out of the way, we can start properly looking for a way outta this place. We can question everybody, look around the castle, read more books, and most importantly actually leave this place and have a search around the village we must be in."

"Hogwarts isn't in a village Naruto, though it is nearby to one. But we can't leave the grounds anyway. Not without express permission."

Naruto went to speak but Sakura continued.

"And also, we have a lot of homework to do this weekend, we don't have time go around interrogating people about things they know nothing about."

"Who cares about homework?" Naruto questioned loudly, "None of this real and we have more important things to attend to, don't we?"

"If we just don't do our work, we'll find ourselves kicked out of this school faster than you can say Hippogriff."

"Hippo-what?"

"Hogwarts is our base, Naruto. We _need_ to learn spells, remember? Think about how handy that Expulso spell will be if we come face to face with Madara. I'd like to see him phase through _that_."

"Well if we just stay in Hogwarts all the time I'm not exactly going to find Madara to fight him, am I?" Naruto said impatiently.

"This is a waiting game, Naruto! We have no clues, no leads. I'm not wandering about all weekend desperately seeking out links to our world that aren't there. What we should be doing is sticking to Hogwarts, blending in, _learning_ , and keeping a lookout for links to our world in the meantime. Madara may have put us in a school for a reason you know, have you ever thought of that?"

"And why would I want to go along with Madara's plan, huh?"

"Because sometimes, Naruto, if you want something, you've got to play along for a while. You can just go off into the Muggle world if you want, but you're not going to find Madara there. He put us here, he probably _knows_ that we're here, we have more chance of running into him if we stay _here_. Got it?"

Naruto begrudgingly and bitterly accepted her argument, then went down to breakfast with her. He ate in a moody silence, cursing this world he had found himself in and desperately pining to return to Konoha. He was not the same as Sakura. Of course she liked this place. Before they had come here she had been complaining all about how bad her parents were, and now here she was, in a boarding school in a completely different world, free at last. He, on the other hand, had some fake parents masquerading as his own somewhere off in the world, and was far too proactive a person to play such a long waiting game. How could Sakura have been sure any clue would turn up anytime soon? What if they were trapped in this world forever? No longer Shinobi of the leaf, but wizards and witches of Britain, or wherever they were.

The day dragged on as Sakura attempted to crack her pile of homework, most of which that had been given on the days before either Naruto or Sakura had appeared in Hogwarts. Naruto found all of this particularly tricky. He had no idea where to start on the Charms essay that required a detailed analysis of the Accio spell, despite the fact that he had taken some notes down on it the previous day, and he found the astronomy homework just short of impossible.

"It involves, like, calculations of the stars and stuff. I can't do math!"

"Naruto," Sakura eventually put down her quill to say, as Naruto moaned on about the Potions homework he was undertaking, "Just try and picture all of this as training. Training to becoming a powerful enough wizard to get yourself home." Naruto gave her a deadpan stare as she went on, "You're good at training, aren't you? Remember when you learnt the rasen-shuriken? That was incredibly intense, but you persevered."

"Ohhh, I had a specialised training technique with my clones for that though! Oh man, imagine if I could just use Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu? How much easier would all of this be? A Naruto for each piece of homework. No! Two Naruto's for each piece of homework!"

"Then you'd just be complaining doubly as much," Sakura muttered, and continued on with her homework.

On Sunday, despite Sakura's misgivings, Naruto decided that he _would_ in fact go about and try and glean some information out of some other people. He found Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji relaxing in the sun by the lake at midday, and sat down and spoke to them for a while, secretly interrogating them under the pretext of just catching up.

"The… what? No, I don't know anything about a guy called Madara," Shikamaru said after Naruto had crudely tried to garner information on Madara from the three of them.

"You say he's a famous dark wizard? I've never heard of him," Ino put in.

"Hmm, yeah you wouldn't have. So, anyway, Ino, what kind of spells do you know?"

Ino shared a confused look with Choji. "The one's I've been taught," she said slowly.

"Yeah, but don't you know any, like, mind controlling spells? Your family is famous for them after all."

"Like the Imperius curse?" supplied Choji.

"What's that?" Naruto rounded on him as Ino said in a confused way, "Since when was my family famous for that?"

"What'd you mean what's that? You don't know about the Unforgivable curses, Menma?" Choji questioned him.

"Ah, no, I know, I know!" Naruto turned to Shikamaru again, "What about any shadow spells? You have shadow spells, Shikamaru?"

"Ugh. What in the hell are you talking about?" Shikamaru sighed in response.

"Ah, forget it," Naruto returned, standing up, "You guys have nothing similar going for you to the versions back home. And just as I thought I was onto something."

The threesome watched Naruto trudge away over the grass, and each pouted in confusion.

"You want to know about Voldemort?"

Naruto had now found and cornered Harry Potter, walking through the corridor back from the second floor toilets, and thinking of the link Sakura had proposed between Madara and You-Know-Who, had decided to stop Harry and ask him of what he knew, seeing as he had reportedly survived an encounter with the dark wizard earlier that summer.

"Voldemort?" Naruto repeated with a scrunched nose, "No, no, I want to know about You-Know-Who!"

"Yeah," said Harry, slightly impatiently, "Voldemort."

"What are you saying that for? Is that a wizard word that I don't know?"

"No!" Harry exploded, "Voldemort is You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, whatever you want to call him!"

"Oh," Naruto nodded, "Oh right. Yeah, tell me about Voldemort then."

Harry raised an eyebrow, not having expected Naruto to have used the name in full and also inwardly questioning if Naruto even knew who Voldemort was (as it seemed not. Though this made little sense, as in the first week Menma was one of the few people who had told Harry that he believed him about Cedric Diggory and the rebirth of the Dark Lord).

"Well, what'd you wanna know?" Harry asked him.

"Who is he?" Naruto countered quickly.

Harry paused in a moment's thought, as if contemplating what exactly he knew of Voldemort he should pass onto Naruto, "Tom Riddle," he eventually said, "He was a student here, once. And the rest I know about him, well, is what everyone else knows." He rubbed at his scar absentmindedly.

"Hmm," Naruto said, rubbing his chin, "And what about… Does he have links with a masked man?"

"Well, the Death Eaters wear masks. When I saw them they…"

Harry trailed off and Naruto saw pain in the boy's eyes. Death. He decided not to push that particular line of questioning too far.

"So, these Death Eaters. Is the mask a spiralled orange one? Do they also wear black cloaks with a red cloud?"

"What? No. Isn't that-"

But Harry paused once again.

"Isn't that what?" Naruto pushed.

Harry leaned in, "Well I don't know about an orange spiralled mask, but the red cloud. Isn't that the symbol the dark wizard Itachi Uchiha uses?"

Naruto's eyes lit up, "Yeah! Yeah Itachi had a red cloud! All of the Akatsuki do! The wizards know about the Akatsuki?"

Harry shook his head, "The Akat-what? I don't know what you're talking about." He gave Naruto a very strange look, but Naruto carried on excitedly.

"So Itachi is a missing wizard too? Is he in league with You-Know-Who?"

"Well, I only know as much as the _Daily Prophet_ reports really," Harry answered awkwardly, "Back when he… you know, did it… people were thinking he may be a Voldemort supporter. But, I mean, nowadays nobody thinks Voldemort is a threat, do they? They all think I'm mad. So I don't really know what they say about Itachi anymore."

"This is great!" Naruto exclaimed and Harry pushed up his glasses when Naruto grabbed his shoulders so hard they fell down slightly.

"It is?" asked Harry.

"Yeah! It's a lead! Thanks, Harry!"

And with that Naruto went running off back to the Gryffindor Common room.

He found Sakura inside, reading a book on Goblin Rebellions, and shouted out her name as he climbed through the portrait hole.

"Sakura! Guess what? Guess who found a lead?"

"Keep it down," Sakura hushed as Naruto fell into the chair next to her, grinning wildly.

"The Akatsuki! The Akatsuki exist in this world!"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I was speaking to that guy, Harry, Harry Potter, and he mentioned something about Itachi Uchiha having a red cloud as a symbol, and also possibly being in league with Voldemort!"

Two shocked sixth years turned to Naruto upon hearing the name said out loud so brashly, and one second year nearby fell off her seat.

"People don't like that name, Naruto," Sakura whispered, "That guy has done some bad stuff, I've read."

"Yeah, well whatever. Don't you see what this all means?"

Sakura shook her head. "Not really, no."

"We've found our first proper lead! Madara is in the Akatsuki! The Akatsuki is his! If they're in this world, then he's surely linked to them, don't you think?"

Sakura moved her head side to side, thinking, then said, "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Naruto repeated incredulously.

"Maybe," she affirmed. Sakura placed her book down and shifted position, "Listen, Naruto. Just because the Akatsuki are possibly in this world, that doesn't mean Madara is affiliated with them. Not in this world. I mean, why would he be? He created this genjutsu world to trap us in, he has total power, surely. He doesn't need to recreate the Akatsuki in this world. Besides, it's clearly different, as Itachi is dead in our world and timeline. Not to mention, how on earth would we investigate this lead?"

"We go in search of Itachi, obviously!" Naruto retorted, not at all liking Sakura's pessimistic outlook already being demonstrated.

"Oh sure, you just go hunt down Itachi Uchiha. Tell me when you find him, would you?"

"Well it's better to go looking for him then wait around here all day!"

"No it's not!" Sakura said back, finally raising her voice, "You know nothing. You can barely use your wand. If Itachi's got the equivalent wizarding skill as his skill as a shinobi, then you don't have a chance in the slightest of surviving an encounter with him. What's the point in getting yourself killed? Or rather, what actually would happen if you went out in search of him, lost?"

"You know, I'm not at all liking your attitude, Sakura! You're enjoying this world too much!"

Sakura narrowed her emerald eyes dangerously, "Oh, am I?" she spat, "I suppose that's because I can actually cast a spell, I've actually bothered to try and accomplish something, whilst you sit about all day either moaning about homework or spouting out stupid ideas of how to get home."

"At least I'm trying to get home!" Naruto hit back, rising to his feet. Many of the Gryffindor students in the Common room were watching the disagreement now, though all were not at all following what they were talking about.

"Oh, I'm trying to get home, Naruto! I'm just not being a total knucklehead about it."

"Don't pretend, Sakura! You're enjoying all of this! No parents! New world to explore! This genjutsu is like a dream world for you."

"It could be for you too if you weren't being so pedantic about everything! Your friends are here, Sasuke is here, and your _parents_ are here. Don't-"

"It's all totally fake!" Naruto screamed out through her, before storming towards the exit.

He heard Sakura call his name over his shoulder, but ignored her, and took off running once out of the Fat Lady and onto the Seventh Floor.

 _ **xxx**_

By the time it had gotten dark, which was becoming a lot earlier as September rolled on, Naruto found himself wandering the basement, where he had been forced to a stop due to not knowing the password for the Hufflepuff Common room. Not really having wanted to go there anyway, he turned around and made him way back to the Ground floor. Now he had spent many hours away, and had time to think to himself, he had accepted that, in truth, Sakura was pretty much correct about the situation. There could be no finding Itachi, or the possibly there but possibly not there Akatsuki, and even if he did find them he would have found himself dead within the second. He still didn't like the fact that she honestly was enjoying her time in Hogwarts, though he internally acknowledged that as long as she _was_ still looking out for a way home, it was not to be held against her.

As much as he did need his walk around Hogwarts in order to get his head straight, he did somewhat regret it, for he still had trouble finding his way back to the Gryffindor Common room by himself. It was on the sixth floor, by a painting of a partially naked wizard fending off an army of transfigured to life wooden chairs, that he really started to get worried, as the sky had now properly turned black, and as he had learnt from his close call with Filch on the way back from Snape's Thursday detention, students were not allowed out of bed late. Indeed, thinking this very thought, it was with a jolt of fear that he noted the lamplight eyes of Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, staring up at him from the other side of the corridor.

"Oh, don't mind me cat. I'm trying to get back to bed, I just… no, no, no don't go tell Filch!"

Naruto darted after the cat, which had turned the corner midway through his sentence, eager to catch it and somehow stop it informing Filch of his whereabouts. By the time he had rounded onto the next corridor, Mrs. Norris had already moved onto the next, and at the next turning Naruto had to skid to a halt and leap back behind the wall as he spotted Filch, with his back turned, skulking about.

"Hm? What is it my sweet? What have you found?"

Naruto bit his lip as he heard Filch say this, then frowned with dread as he heard Filch's footsteps echoing closer and closer. On his hands and knees, staying down in order not to be seen, Naruto crawl sped over to one of the nearest doors and pushed himself inside, and this was quite literally just in time, as Filch arrived on that corridor the half second after the door had closed behind him. Ears perked and listening out for Filch on the other side, Naruto moved his eyes to the room and stifled in a gasp.

Sasuke Uchiha was in the room, wand drawn, and it was pointed Naruto's away. The boy whispered something, and when Naruto went to speak he suddenly found that he couldn't, as if his tongue had been rolled up into his mouth. He jumped side to side in a panicked fashion as Sasuke pushed Naruto to the side and then cast another spell, both on himself and then Naruto. The Uchiha then, just as the door opened and the sound of Filch talking to himself became audible, jumped to the wall next to his fellow student, in the now fully opened door's shadow.

"In here are they?" Filch said, his head popping in as he spoke.

His eyes seemed to take in all the details of the room, and to Naruto's horror he even moved his head behind the door, as if he knew the two were hiding there. Oddly enough, however, it appeared as if he didn't see them, as muttering to himself he pulled away and moved back into the corridor, talking to Mrs. Norris as he did so.

Sasuke moved back out and waited a short moment, listening to the outside corridor, before turning and flicking his wand Naruto's way.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" He asked immediately, as Naruto slumped and gulped in air.

"He didn't see us. How did he not see us?" Naruto said instead, rolling his tongue about. His mouth felt very strange, like a cramped muscle.

"I cast a disillusionment charm on the both of us. We weren't invisible, but we definitely blended in."

"Disillusionment charm? Like ninjas in Japan!"

Sasuke gave Naruto a scornful look then moved back to the centre of the room.

Looking now, Naruto wasn't sure what this room could have been used for, exactly. It wasn't really big enough for a classroom, and wasn't designed like one either. There was an empty fireplace at the front, and chairs haphazardly placed around the room, tables pushed to the side as well as bookcases full of dusty, old looking manuals. Sasuke lit the candles on the side tables, giving the room a yellow flickering glow, reap with long shadows dancing against the walls.

"You haven't answered my question. You didn't come here looking for me, did you?"

"No I did not!" Naruto roared disapprovingly, "Get over yourself, Sasuke!"

Sasuke glared at him.

"I was just having a walk around the castle and I forgot the time. Then I ran into Filch so I hid in here."

"Filch was up here looking for me," Sasuke said, "I think one of the teachers must have set some kind of advanced spell for him that alerts him to a student coming to this corridor at night. Mrs. Norris found me here the other night and though I got away without being caught, he's probably really suspicious."

"And why are you up here at night?"

Sasuke raised a suspicious eyebrow, "Whilst that's definitely none of your concern, I at least thought you'd have enough wits about you to work that one out."

Naruto thought about this for a moment, before snapping his fingers. "You were practising dark magic!"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, "No. Not this time. I've been caught once, I won't be caught doing that again. I have some place else to research and practise that kind of magic when I need to. A place I can't get caught."

"And where's that?"

"None of your business."

Sasuke moved and kicked one of the chairs towards the centre, away from most of the others and so it was in space, and then pointed his wand at it. "Expulso!" There was a contained blue rush of power, and then the chair exploded into a thousand pieces, splinters raining down against the fireplace wall. Naruto gasped.

"You've learnt that spell too? So you're up here practising?"

"Not powerful enough," Sasuke muttered to himself, knocking some wood shavings off of his shoulders then kicking another chair into the same space as the last one. He paused and looked up at Naruto, "Would you get lost?"

Naruto moved over and stood next to Sasuke. The boy glared at him all the way. Lifting up his wand in the same way, Naruto stuck his hand straight out, then shouted, "Expulso!" too. The chair exploded in the same way Sasuke's did.

Sasuke raised his head, "Well, Defence against the Dark Arts has always been your least useless subject."

Naruto smirked. Although personality wise this Sasuke was just the same, and although in some past Naruto didn't really know of, Sasuke had again in this world cut off both him and Sakura in pursuit of power, he couldn't help but feel that this Sasuke was slightly less… unhinged. He may have defriended everybody he knew, but in this world he had not at least ran off to Orochimaru, he had not at least already come into contact with his older brother. He may have been bent on revenge the same as in the real world, but at least here his vengefulness had been contained to the Hogwarts castle, and here, no matter what, remained people that cared for him. It was if it was a Sasuke who decided to forsake all his ties of friendships, but also at the same time remain within Konoha. It was an impossible thing to have occurred back home, of course, but here, it was almost as if it had happened.

"Sasuke," Naruto said in a light voice, "If I were to ask you…"

He paused.

"What?" Sasuke asked darkly.

Naruto shook his head.

Sakura was right. There was no point in searching for Itachi due to his possible link to Madara, so there was no point asking Sasuke about him for a lead. The boy would have just attacked him again anyway, and this time, there would have been no Snape there to save him.

Naruto made his way over to the door. "Don't get caught out of bed," he said over his shoulder.

"Just get out of here and leave me to it," came Sasuke's scathing reply.

Upon returning to the Gryffindor Common room, Naruto found Sakura still up and clearly waiting for him. The only others still awake were Harry, Ron, and Hermione, all sat around the fire deep in conversation about something seemingly important.

"Naru-Menma!" she called out as she saw him crawl through into the room.

He smiled and moved over to her, giving her hug when he reached her.

"I'm sorry, Sakura. I shouldn't have shouted at you."

Sakura looked embarrassed, and after pulling away returned to her seated position, "Oh Naruto, don't worry about it. I shouldn't have been so short with you either."

"I know you're right now too," Naruto told her, "I was being impatient. I just wanted to get back home, and you know, that letter from my so called parents got to me a bit, so…"

"No need to explain, Naruto. It's fine," Sakura smiled, "And hey, look."

She went into Naruto's bag, which he had left in the room when he had stormed out, and took out his Potion's homework.

"I, err, helped you finish it. So to speak. A little sorry present."

"Oh, Sakura. You're a life saver. Thanks a bunch!"

"Anyway, we should both be really getting to bed. Big week ahead of us, and, um," she glanced sideways to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, "I think those three want us to leave for some reason."

Naruto grinned and nodded, and after giving Sakura a quick goodbye, made his way up to the boy's dormitories for the night.

Sakura was right. He had a funny feeling that it was indeed going to be a big week ahead.

* * *

 _ **A/N- Really enjoying writing this fic. Please review if you enjoyed! They're great incentives to keep writing.**_


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